Henrilogy
Posted: Mon 13 May, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, London, Theatre, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »On Friday, I went with a friend to Shakespeare’s Globe to see their Henry season on one of the Trilogy Days.
That meant we got to see Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2, and Henry V all in one day – starting at 12.00 noon, and finishing at 22:30 (give or take)
It’s three plays, all around the two-and-a-half-hour mark, with a decent break between them. But all the same, it makes for one long-ass day. Particularly because the Globe’s seats (no way was I going to do the whole thing standing) are solid wood, backless, and pretty bloody unforgiving. Yes, you can hire cushions or a seat back, but even so, it makes it hard-going.
I hadn’t seen any of these before, and (as usual) went in with very little knowledge of the stories involved. I’d seen Richard II earlier this year so knew the prior events, but that was about it – and my history knowledge (as I keep on being reminded by things like this) is fuckin’ abysmal. (I’m also seeing Richard III this week – I must be a glutton for punishment!)
I enjoyed the plays – IV Part 1 and V more than Part 2, as I don’t really do well with the “political intrigues” type of thing. I think that seeing all three in a day meant it all gelled together better in my head, although I’m still going to need to read the plays and some of the history around them in order to build up the knowledge a bit.
It was worth going, and I enjoyed the whole day. I don’t know that I’d necessarily want to see any of them again any time soon, but I’m glad I’ve seen them.
Seven Years
Posted: Sun 5 May, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Housing, Looking Back, Milton Keynes, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s seven years today that I moved to where I currently live. That’s the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I moved out of the house I grew up in.
As I’ve said before, I never expected to stay here this long – it was a location of convenience, a house that came up at the right time, in the right place, and was affordable.
As it turned out, it was more that it was a convenient location, a place to stay that’s easy to get away from, easy to go anywhere else. For the moment it’s still that.
It’s not ideal. It’s a tiny house, which suited my needs then and now – there’s no spare bedroom for friends to stay over or anything, but that’s part of the price I pay, and it just means I go to them instead. At the same time though, I can’t deny I’d like a bit more space, so I could take my books out of their boxes, that kind of thing.
I’ve been looking at other places and so on, but there’s nothing (yet) that’s grabbed me, that’s made me think I want to be there rather than here.
There’s six months on my current tenancy (the first one was a six-month-only one, just in case I turned out to be a nightmare tenant etc., and since then they’ve been annual renewals) and I’m going to take that time to assess things, see if there’s anywhere else that would work better for me.
I might still be here in a year’s time. I might not. We’ll see.
Local Elections
Posted: Fri 3 May, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, News, Politics, Thoughts Leave a comment »While in general I despise politics and politicians, I also always vote. It’s my right to do so, and I fully believe that everyone who can vote should vote – and that if they don’t, they have no room to gripe about what’s happened in politics.
Yesterday’s local elections were the first time I’ve ever been so apathetic about it that I honestly could’ve not bothered.
Thing was, it seemed like even the candidates couldn’t be arsed – I didn’t even get any leaflets dropped through the door, let alone any visits.
Sadly, my local council is a pretty safely Conservative (as it turned out, that’s still true, but it’s a lot more precarious than it was) and my useless ballbag of an MP regularly gets re-elected by a decent majority. So it was never likely that anything interesting would occur with my council – which also increased my apathy on the “even voting won’t change anything” score.
All told, I don’t quite know what can happen to fix things and increase the voter buy-in. The current situation is just dire, with no real sign of any light at the end of the tunnel.
Small Wins – Backup
Posted: Fri 26 April, 2019 Filed under: Business, Change, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Photography, Technology, Thoughts, Time Leave a comment »Way, way back in the day – Nov 2006, to be precise – I bought a backup drive for all my music, photos and work. It wasn’t anything hugely special – a now laughable 320Gb drive – but it did what I wanted, and made sure I’d got everything preserved. (Amusingly, I just took a look, and the roughly-similar drives now done by WD start at 3Tb!)
And then I moved a few times, and the drive got separated from its power brick, and I sort of gave up on it a bit. Over the last few years I’ve mainly been using online backups instead (which mean that as soon as I save a file, it’s backed up, and synchronises to my other machines) and the drive became even less of an issue.
I always knew where the drive itself was, even though I was fairly sure I’d lost (or thrown away) the power lead/brick. The drive has been on one of my bookcases, doing nothing except attracting dust.
Last weekend, though, I found a random power cable that looked like it might fit the drive. So I took them both into my office this week, and gave it a go.
At the end of the day, I’d pretty much given up on it – it’s been sat there doing sod-all for a number of years, and has been carelessly moved, shoved in boxes and so on. So I expected nothing.
And yet, when I plugged the cables in and connected it to the laptop, it all worked. Straight away, with no issues, clanks, grinds, or other Warning Noises Of Doom. Needless to say, I’m actually pretty impressed.
Of course, I’ll also now be working to ensure that a lot of it is backed up somewhere else as well, as that drive is distinctly venerable, but all the same, it’s a bit of a win for it all to have come back in the way it has.
Small Wins – Suited
Posted: Mon 22 April, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Health, People, Thoughts, Weight Loss Leave a comment »As part of the “generally busy” of the last few weeks, I was asked to attend a funeral/cremation for the father of a friend of mine. As the dresscode was described as “formal” I opted for my much-loved three-piece suit that I got made in Cambridge. Turns out, that suit is exactly 12 years old (I took delivery of it at the start of April 2007)
Anyway, when I tried it on, I was really pleased to find that it still fits just fine – the most I had to do was brush the dust off it, as I haven’t worn it that much in the last few years.
So basically, I’m taking it as a small win that actually I haven’t changed size/weight/dimensions over that 12 year period. I know I’m still overweight and blah blah blah, but it’s been utterly consistent for over a decade, which I’m pretty happy with. I know there have been fluctuations over that time, but this current state certainly appears to be my default.
And I’m OK with that.
Slump
Posted: Wed 17 April, 2019 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Getting Organised, Health, Insomnia, Rebuilding, Thoughts 1 Comment »Things have been quiet on D4D of late. Basically, I’m in a bit of a slump, and at the moment I’m not quite sure how to get out of it.
There’s a lot of reasons behind it, but mainly it’s down to an overbearing feeling of stagnation, or being a bit bogged down. I’m used to having change in my life, and at the moment it’s not really there. Some of that is inertia, some of it is still the final stages from the bankruptcy process and some of it is the current state of things. But it all adds up to an overall sludge – and while I know I want things to change, I also don’t quite know what I want to do next, or where I want to be.
Domestically, I’ve been in this house for seven years. That’s by far the longest I’ve been in any one place since I left the family home. I was looking at moving last year when the tenancy came up, but that was only just after the bankruptcy finished, and I didn’t want to push things while it was still showing up on credit checks and the like. So I’m thinking about it for this year – but there’s also nowhere that’s dragging me, nowhere that I’ve been and thought “OK, this is where I want/need to be”, and it’s all a bit up in the air. There’s still time, though.
Workwise, I’ve been working on the same project for more than three years. (Probably closer to 4, all told) And while we’ve got a lot done, there still feels like no end in sight (things keep on being added in to it, or stuff is more complex than initially expected) which doesn’t help. I like contracting in general for exactly this – that each contract is finite – even though they can (and usually do) get extended, they still have an end date where I can say “Nope, I’m done”. This one is open-ended, and it’s feeling more and more like a proper job and blah blah.
Outside of those two things, there’s so much doubt about what’s going on in the UK – with Brexit being delayed even further, it’s left everything in limbo again, of not knowing what’ll happen with it, and what’ll happen with jobs, economy and so on if and when it happens. I can’t deny, that all contributes to the current sense of stagnation.
I’m not depressed – well, no more than usual – and I’m still getting out and getting other stuff done. It’s just that I’ve not got the time or energy for anything extra. I wish I did, but I don’t.
I’m going to keep on working on it, though. I know I need a couple of new projects to be getting on with – but I also need to find the motivation to get it going. That’s where the stagnation is really hurting – I know I need and want to change, but right now the drive to change things is also being blocked.
I’ll figure it out, I know – I always do, and always have done. And hopefully it won’t take too much longer to turn the corner.
Incompetents (Part Two)
Posted: Wed 27 March, 2019 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 5 Comments »Following on from the other post about people (or at least politicians) not thinking things through, the other one is/was about the EU’s new plan for all new cars to be fitted with speed limiters from 2022.
Speed limiters are – in some circumstances – a really good idea. If the limiting was in place for areas with lower speed limits – the areas with speed limits of 20,30, 40, and perhaps even 50mph – then that would be good. I see so many people speeding in those areas. I still think it’d have its problems, but this would at least help. (I’ve said before that I have my reservations on this in the 50mph average speed limit areas currently in place on a lot of motorway work areas)
If, however, it’s something that is brought in universally, for all roads at all limits, then it’s idiotic – and again, shows a lack of understanding when it comes to people, business, cars, driving, and umpteen other things.
The first thing that occurred to me when I heard this was that a goodly portion of police (or council) funding is generated or paid for via speeding fines and the like. If speeding is hugely reduced by automation and limiters, where will that money and funding be coming from?
For another thing, if everything is limited to the national speed limit, it’ll reduce people’s desire/drive to pay more for larger/faster vehicles. If you can get a basic [car model] that’ll do everything and can go up to the speed limit where it’s limited, why would you pay two or three times the price for a performance version of the same [car model] that can’t do anything extra, that can’t go faster or perform better? (Personally I don’t see much point in these super-performance models anyway, but that’s not the point here)
Again, I like the idea of auto-limiting speeds/cars in slower and busier areas. But making it a universal solution seems to have missed a fair number of knock-on issues, with no clues or hints about how to actually fix them.